What's More Important? Internet vs. Country Living

The two separate sides of my mind have hit a crossroads, and I'm not sure how to compromise to satisfy them both.

You see, as a whole, we live in a technological world. One that relies heavily on networking, streaming, video chat, uploading, downloading, gaming... all of which requires high-speed internet with no download allowance.

But out here in the country, I'm a bit detached from that world. It's the reason why every month or so I seem to "phase out" from Facebook and blogging, the reason I still don't have Diablo 3 downloaded yet (even though it was given to me free through a promotion months before it was released), and it's the reason I can't have Netflix streaming in my house.

I live in a completely different world. One that is more physical--open--with freedom and fresh air. I am in Central Texas, in the middle of green pastures and cow country. I have horses, I have a barn, I have a lake, I have a front yard that stretches 1/4 mile and a backyard that I can't even see the end of. I live on 134 acres with my husband and our two little boys. And I love it out here.

I grew up in Orlando, Florida. Out in the city, in a neighborhood where your backyard was big enough for a swing set and a trampoline and that was about it. Where you had paved streets and all the kids met up to play basketball in their driveways or hide and seek under streetlights. Where you HAVE streetlights. You could walk to the nearest gas station, or restaurant, or school. Where I live now, our closest neighbor is over half a mile away (that is, if you drew a straight line from our house to theirs; it's farther than that if you measured by the road). We have gravel roads until you hit the highway, and the only kids we know are family. We don't have streetlights until you hit a city--and our closest "town" doesn't qualify for that title, seeing as how it has a single stoplight... and it's not even a stoplight, it's a caution light. I suppose I could attempt to walk to the nearest gas station... though it would take me a few hours to get there by foot.

Don't get me wrong; I love it out here. The freedom to walk out my front door wearing whatever I want--or don't want! The wildlife I get to see out my window. Families of deer, even a beaver down at our lake! My kids can run and play in the pasture and not have to watch out for cars. I can have a wider variety of pets out here that I would never have had in the city. We have an array of birds ranging from chickens to guineas to exotic pheasants, and we're restocking on ducks, geese, and quail this year. We have horses, we've had goats and donkeys, and I've even had a llama. ♥ We have horseback riding, four-wheeler expeditions around the property, and campfire hangouts with marshmallows and good music. Country life is truly different from city life. Things are done differently, said differently, expressed differently... There's more work to be done, but more time to relax and a better environment in which to do that relaxing.

And yet, here's where I'm torn. I love the country, I love this property, and I love seeing the freedom my kids have to play and learn how to be little country boys. I love seeing my husband have the space to work on random projects and build things. I love being able to lay out in the pasture and get lost in deep thoughts or work on my book. BUT: I love technology.

I am a gamer girl at heart. I grew up watching my dad and stepdad play their games--their Segas and Playstations and Nintendos. I found a deep attachment to the gaming world and all the potential worlds that each game could bring you to. I love the challenges you face, the hand-eye coordination you need and the strategical difficulties you encounter to overcome levels and bosses. My love of technology doesn't stop at gaming either, oh no! It continues on to more important things like staying in touch with family.

The internet is the fastest and easiest way I have of staying in touch with my entire family. And I have a very big family. Facebook enables me to upload pictures of my life and kids for my family to see, and I can see pictures they post as well. We can update statuses and see how everyone is doing all from a single page. We can send notices to the entire family all at once, or chat one on one. Skype lets me have video chat with family so they can see my kids in real time, not just a still shot. And be able to talk to my kids, let them hear their voice and see their face, so it's not just "your Aunt Kasi says she loves you!" but instead, "Look, it's Aunt Kasi!" and have her be able to actually tell them herself. Netflix lets us have movies and shows to sit down to in the evening, since we don't have (nor do we want) cable television.

But our internet options out here are LIMITED. We can have satellite internet, or we can have a mobile hotspot through our phone company. That's it, that's the end of the line, that's all she wrote. Two options. And let me tell you, neither of those are good ones.

The satellite internet is SLOOOOOOOOW. It takes two minutes to upload a single photo to facebook, and I have to use the basic uploader and do a single photo at a time. It is not fast enough for streaming, so no instant-watch Netflix. And naturally, the connection is far too slow to conduct a video chat or to play our favorite internet MMORPG World of Warcraft. It also has a download allowance, giving us 1GB per 24hr period, so downloading takes forever; oh, and if you didn't know, streaming ANYTHING uses up that download allowance, so we can watch about an hour worth of youtube videos a day before it uses it all. That's spread between all three computers in the house, so 20 minutes per person. And if something is downloading on one computer, everyone else's goes super slow until the download is complete.

The hotspot has great internet. It's fast: fast enough to stream, fast enough to video chat, fast enough for World of Warcraft, and fast enough to upload pictures to Facebook with the advanced uploader in about ten seconds. PROBLEM: It has a 5GB allowance per month. PER MONTH. That means we can't actually use it for uploading pictures, video chat, or streaming. We use it to play our game, since it's something we all do together, but if we do much more than that it overruns our allowance and it costs an extra $10 per GB that it goes over. Quite easy to rack up a high bill with that.

We've considered calling up whatever the nearest cable company is and asking how much it would cost to just have a line run out to our house. But after looking it up online and seeing the trouble that some other people have had attempting to do the same thing, I have serious doubts that it's even an option. They will just laugh and tell us that it's not possible, sorry they couldn't be more helpful.

We love our internet. It's something that life practically relies on these days, with the entire world become more and more connected via internet, email, video chat, and messenger. If you need something, you can get it online faster and cheaper than if you did it over the phone or through the postal service. And as time goes on, we are feeling more and more detached from the ability to use the internet in this way. It's starting to seem like we're hungry and there's a perfectly ripe fruit hanging from a branch just barely out of reach. As a matter of fact, unless we overextend ourselves or move, there doesn't seem to be a way to reach that fruit at all.

So, what's more important? Enjoying the location that we live at, or having effective connections to the outside world? Having more things available to us with the click of a mouse button, or being closer to nature and less reliant on technology? Where the hell do we go from here? Stuck spending hundreds of dollars a month for two separate internet providers that each give us less than adequate service? I suppose that's the price of living in the country... But is that fair at all? Am I asking for too much? Is this what they mean when they say you can't have your cake and eat it too?

This is so frustrating.